Archive for October, 2014

So, I was reading some articles on space exploration yesterday (as you do!) and I began to see an interesting pattern as regards space agency insignia. The logos of all the more prominent agencies seem to revolve (or orbit, if you will) around a predictable group of symbols – planets, stars, aspirational arrowheads – but, more than that, they all seemed to be leading inexorably towards Star Trek‘s fictional Starfleet emblem.

While I’d long be familiar with the NASA and Roscosmos logos and have noticed the slight resemblance before, the emblem of the Chinese National Space Agency has a real “Missing Link” quality to it given how closely it resembles the Next Generation era combadge/Starfleet insignia.

A little more Googling has turned up the following about the symbolism of the various logos:

NASA Insignia:

Wikipedia informs me (so it must be true, right?) that the NASA insignia displays a sphere to represents a planet, stars…

As dramatised in ‘The Dubliners Dilemma’, James Joyce’s first prose work, ‘Dubliners’ was finally published in 1914 after an eight year struggle with several publishers. To mark the 100th anniversary of this auspicious day in world letters, Declan Gorman’s one-man show will embark on a tour of Ireland and select overseas festivals later this year. Watch this space for details. If you manage a venue or local festival and would like to contact us, just click here.

Marking the centenary of the publication of James Joyce’s ‘Dubliners’, Bachelors Walk Productions is proud to announce its “2014 West to East European Tour” of ‘The Dubliners Dilemma’ adapted and performed by Declan Gorman, based on stories by James Joyce. The tour commences on April 2nd in Galway, home town of Joye’s partner, Nora Barnacle and ends just south of Moscow, at the estate home of Leo Tolstoy, in early July – taking in Belfast, Birr, Belmullet, Ballymun, Blanchardstown, Bray, Bloomsday in Dublin, Ennis, Monaghan, Limerick and Navan… and also Trieste, Italy, where most of the book was written.

All Irish regional dates (except the Limerick and Navan matinees) will also feature a specially designed Audio Visual presentation ‘The Life of Joyce’, live-narrated by Bern Deegan

Patrick Kavanagh, Patrick McCabe, Mary O’Donnell, Evelyn Conlon… yes. But James Joyce and Monaghan? In advance of the performance of ‘The Dubliners Dilemma’ at the Garage Theatre on April 25th, blogger, publicist and himself a native of Monaghan, Alph Traynor interviewed Declan Gorman and discovered some hitherto hidden connections between James Joyce and a county he never visited nor mentioned in his work!

Monaghan playwright Declan Gorman returns to the Garage Theatre next Friday, April 25th with his acclaimed one-man show, “The Dubliners Dilemma”, after a long absence.

While Gorman has returned to work on a number of community theatre projects, his last professional showing in his hometown was with his adaptation of Patrick Kavanagh’s ‘The Green Fool’ which proved very popular with local audiences on its national tours in 2004 and…

A few weeks ago I flew a Palestine flag at a Galway FC match. Admittedly I was the only person in the stadium doing such a thing, but within seconds the singing section changed their chants and were merrily roaring “Palestine!” for a minute or so. A nice bit of solidarity all the way from Deacy Park, especially for those young boys who were murdered on a beach in Gaza for the crime of playing football.

Had that been a UEFA qualifying match, I probably would have brought a hefty fine on the heads of the Maroon army. Such is the case with Dundalk FC – who are facing a fine of €18,000, from UEFA, for having fans who dared to fly such a “political” flag as that of Palestine. UEFA regard the flying of the flag as a breach of their conditions, despite Ajax flying Israeli flags at all…

‘Most Read’ stories in (from top to bottom) the Irish Times, the Belfast Telegraph and The Times (London) on the evening of Ian Paisley’s death, 12 September 2014. Jon Ronson’s reflections on Paisley as preacher, ‘Time to work up a good pulpit sweat’, mean that the ‘Big Man’ accounts for four of the five most-read stories in the Irish Times this evening. No surprise that he should attract more attention in Dublin than in London (just one in five) but the apparent disparity in levels of interest between readers of the Irish Times and the Belfast Telegraph (one in five as well) is a little more curious. Maybe it reflects Ian Paisley’s late-in-life role as champion of a compromise peace settlement which is now the focus of simmering discontent on the unionist right. The fact that ‘Cameron and Blair’ are referenced in the Telegraph‘s headline about Ian Paisley provides…

Irish people aren’t very good at talking about themselves, are we? It’s a national stereotype that we need to be at least three pints deep before we can start pulling our moves on the objects of our attraction.

We can’t take a compliment. ‘You look nice today.’ ‘AHHH GOWAYYYYY.’

Nor are we particularly good at small talk. ‘Wile weather out there.’ ‘Wee nip in it aye.’

But if there’s one thing about ourselves that needs to be addressed with honesty and seriousness, it’s mental health. For so often and for so long, mental health was left on the wayside of Irish life. People with serious mental difficulties were merely shipped off to ‘the funny farm,’ or perhaps there was ‘no harm in them, but they’re a wee bit soft in the head is all.’ Words to that effect, anyhow, anything to brush off the crushing realities of some people’s existence…